An Apple a Day Keeps the Villain Away
by Fruitiest of Mallards
Summary: Danny is sent to a school over the summer thanks to Vlad, and, as always, he runs into some brick walls. Can he overcome them and survive three months away from Amity Park? Moreover, can he survive his own mind? OCs, gen, post-TUE.
1. Naïveté

Danny sometimes spent time in Vlad's Amity Park mansion.

He could not find a justifiable reason for it. All he knew was there had been a day in the past he'd flown in through the walls, out of sheer curiosity, found a feline animal, laughed quite loudly, and then decided to stay for a little while. The cat was a friendly, affectionate thing. It followed him wherever he walked, pawing at his feet, and it was the neatest game of chase he'd ever played.

He was fourteen, having fun, and he hadn't yet been found.

On one of these intrusive afternoons, a door opened. It was a door to a spare bedroom of Vlad's mansion, one of many, and it was the room Danny sat in, playing around with a cat bearing his mother's name, tired from a fight which had taken place less than half-an-hour before. He'd just begun settling in to the whole situation when suddenly the door opened and he found himself looking into the piercing dark blue eyes of Vlad Masters-Plasmius.

Danny froze.

The two of them stared at one another for a moment, Danny oddly feeling caught, as if he'd been discovered doing something silly and embarrassing by his mother. What a strange thought to have, when dealing with an archenemy…

Vlad stayed where he was, presence imposing, as if he wasn't surprised by Danny's presence there at all. Danny wondered why. He expected more words said than this. _Intruding on my property? What are you doing here?_

Vlad stalked forward until he was about nose-to-nose with Danny—or, he would have been, if they were the same height, "How naïve are you?"

"What?"

Like a veil being flung off, dark rings materialized and swung over the older man's form, until they disappeared and Danny's eyes widened to take in the other halfa's ghost-morph. Not about to miss a cue, Danny transmorphed as well, albeit much less dramatically.

"You are such a child!"

Red eyes stared furiously into bright green ones, unblinking. The green eyes, however, blinked profusely, confused at the sudden outburst—and then his brain lit up, electrocuted, he remembered those words.

_You are such a child! You 'promised'?!_

The stark, unforgiving image of smiling, sharp teeth and a devilish contortion of his own symbol distracted him long enough for Plasmius' next shout to be a shock back to reality, right at the second his lips instinctively moved to mouth, _Yes, I promised._

"It's only going to get _harder_ from this point on, boy!"

Plasmius' fist slammed into Danny's cheekbone. His teeth clacked, he went flying backwards. With a fleshy thud—he could hear his stomach flop inside him at impact—he didn't have the strength even to groan in effort as he stood up again. He always stood up again.

He swallowed the blood in his mouth long enough to spit, "What crawled up _your_—"

Another fist, this time to the gut, left him coughing. He formulated one sound, "God," and then he hoped he wasn't bleeding internally. That had happened once or twice before, and it wasn't nice. It was a wound he couldn't get bandage up. It healed quickly enough on its own, although he was pretty sure normal people drove themselves to the E.R. when they realized they had internal bleeding.

"This must stop," Vlad shook his head deeply, "It was amusing at first, but now I can't stand it."

Danny didn't know how to respond. He didn't understand what Vlad was talking about. He was kind of in a haze. Vlad looked at him, seeming to assess the damage he had caused, then said, "I've always known that you've been coming here, boy, and I'm _baffled_ as to what possessed you to come here again after the kind of disagreement we had earlier today."

Right. The battle…was with Plasmius.

Wait—he'd known?

He hadn't done anything?

That—made—no sense.

"What are you going to do?"

Danny was perplexed. The question was random, but the answer was as obvious as it was any other time. "I'm…going…to fight you." Vlad scoffed.

"No, you idiot. What are you going to do when you meet an enemy who isn't as _kind_ as I am?"

"'K…_kind_'?" The word itself tasted like a lie.

Vlad sighed, and covered one half of his face with a palm, in lieu of praying to some unknown god or goddess—probably Nemesis, Danny thought—and inquiring why he was suffering so. The gesture was so unexpected and emotional, Danny reeled back a bit.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Vlad's arm snapped back to his side. He stood ramrod straight, "No. What is wrong with _you?_ You have no sense! It will get you killed someday!" He breathed in, "No son of mine—"

The fury that overtook Danny's senses was unbelievable, but not unfamiliar.

"I'M NOT YOUR SON!"

Maddie the cat hissed.

Vlad thundered, "YOU ALREADY ARE! And you will learn what the real world is like, so help me," gloved hands wrapped around Danny's neck and he was yanked forward. The exclamation sunk in and his jaw set.

Danny mustered offensive ectoplasm in his hands, intense enough that it painted their faces in a green light. The world was pain, brawling, and figuring out where to hit and doing his best to hit first. Everything was lost to him that didn't involve beating the opposition.

He could only assume he lost the fight when he woke up sore and battered in his own bed the next morning.


	2. Resigned

Danny gazed up at his bedroom ceiling.

It had little bumps all along it; some chipped, from all the times he'd gotten bored, transmorphed, and killed time scraping his fingers across it, watching the white pieces fall onto his bed with the kind of seriousness which only a child with nothing to do could fathom.

He ignored the rampaging headache in his skull. He hadn't taken any pills, not even painkillers, since he'd been made a half-ghost. He was afraid to. What if it did something weird to his system? Was his system any different at all? These were all things that Vlad could answer, but he knew better than to approach the man with such wonderings.

He'd take advantage of the opportunity.

Danny dressed himself in clothes that weren't stained with blood. He tossed the dirty stuff in the to-be-washed basket, and hoped his mother or sister—whoever was doing the laundry—wouldn't notice the dried redness. Perhaps it was a futile hope. They had eyes like hawks when it came to clothing.

Especially his sister. She knew what to expect. His mother, she might shrug it off as dirt.

He trudged down the stairs, glancing at the family photos stuck on the walls as he went down. One father. Only one. Not two. Take that, Plasmius.

He greeted his mother. She smiled at him.

_It's impossible to have two fathers. So why does it feel like…_

Bitter, Danny asked for coffee.

"Really?" His mother gawked. It was morning, and she hadn't truly been awake until he had asked that question. "Well, alright. I'll make some for you, too. This is new. I think. It is, isn't it?"

"Tried it before," Danny shrugged, although it was difficult to act like there wasn't something on his mind, "This is the first time I'm asking you to make it."

"Huh," said Maddie, then set to work. Coffee-making was her morning routine, unless Jack got up before her. "I'm glad you're trying new things."

He wasn't. Trespassing in Vlad's mansion and messing around with his cat had been a 'new thing' once upon a time. He should've never given in to his curiosity, to the feeling of having some sort of advantage over his archenemy. What advantage had that been? Playing with your enemy's pet animal. Ingenious.

He hurt in places he didn't know could hurt. He hated it.

He struggled to recall all the things Vlad had said. Something about being naïve. Please. He said things like that all of the time. What did it matter, that he'd said it with a different undertone this time? It meant nothing. It was all craziness with this guy. He never let up. If there was one thing Danny had learnt, it was never to listen to Vlad Masters.

Not even when he might have a point.

Danny frowned into the hot mug his mother passed him. What point? Where had that thought come from?

Whatever.

Didn't matter…

It was a Saturday. No school.

It was nearing the end of the school-year anyway.

Chances were, he'd have summer-school. Oh, boy. He'd managed to weasel his way out of it last summer but this year was truly down in the dumps. He would have to take an extra year of high-school at this rate. That was sort of alright by him. What choice did he have? Whatever it took to get that diploma. College wasn't in the picture. Not for him.

"My grades really suck, don't they?" He blurted in an attempt to start conversation—and immediately regretted that course of action. His mother's mood soured visibly, lips pursing and brows furrowing.

"Yes, they do," she confirmed tritely.

_Well, hell,_ Danny thought with a wince. _How's that for the cold, hard truth?_

"You won't get into university with those grades, young man," his mother continued. He could feel a lecture coming on. Double hell. "And I…just don't know what to do with you, anymore!" She sounded upset, and it was all too much for Danny to take. He gave half-a-mind to standing up and walking away, but he couldn't do that to his mom.

"You don't listen! I tell you time and again, and it's like you don't _care_, Danny, I swear. Don't you care about your future?"

He cared about ghost-fighting. His friends. And family. Protecting his friends and family. Not much else. He couldn't foresee much of a future. It used to hurt him but he simply learned not to care. She was right—it was not something on his list of priorities. Why get a second career? The only difference was that he wasn't paid for the one he had.

"I'm sorry, Mom," he meant it. A moment passed and he realized she was waiting for something more. He couldn't think of anything else to say. Her eyes darkened in disappointment.

She stood up, and left him alone at the kitchen table.

How's that for the cold, hard truth?

* * *

A widescreen view of the scene showed Danny Fenton, hunched over in a kitchen chair in FentonWorks, looking for all the world like something important to him had been broken.

The TV flickered off. "I have an idea," said Vlad to Maddie the cat. It was a good idea. Maddie's—the real Maddie—display of emotion had shaken him, sullen as he had been from the previous night. He suddenly remembered the fact that Daniel was her son. It was a fact he sometimes forgot, never completely, but it fell to the back of his mind.

She was suffering. He had to do something. For her.

Besides, no son of his would be lazy in his education. He wouldn't have it.

He picked up his address book and a phone. He had phone-calls to make.


	3. Okay

Danny's grip was like steel in his determination and the mindless blob of a specter didn't know what hit it. Or, what it hit, that was. Danny threw it against the nearest solid object. The Casper High flagpole wouldn't be very sturdy after this.

It was the last day of school and there was a ghost.

Of course there was a ghost.

Danny grunted, slamming into the ghost with every ounce of his bodily strength and willpower. It doubled over, and Danny was sure that if ghosts had lungs to have air in it would be hacking. He wasted no time, he was as used to this as breathing. A regime of daily ghost-fighting did that to a person.

He wrenched his thermos from its spot on his hip and sucked the ghost in it. It was a quick and relatively painless fight, he'd incapacitated it long enough to get rid of it. Didn't need more dwelling than that.

He flew down from the sky and made himself invisible, transmorphing into his human-half, technically where anyone could see, but at the same time couldn't. Only the most sensitive anti-ecto equipment could 'see' a ghost that didn't want to be seen.

He walked through the door and past the registrar's office. He had no believable excuse for his absence, so he ignored the attendance office. He had no believable excuse for much of anything these days.

His mother, after her bout of distress, had gone quiet and acted like nothing happened. He couldn't blame her that, he didn't bring it up, either. It was his father who had marched into his room that night and said, gravely, "Son. We need to talk."

Danny's C-average had gone down to an F.

They'd gotten a letter from the court, someone at Casper High had filed a complaint for his absences. If the truancy continued, his parents would have to pay a fine, anything from two-hundred dollars to eight-hundred, or Danny would have to do community service.

Danny hated himself. He hated his life. His half-life. The term was one he'd heard Vlad use on more than one occasion, so, thinking it was correct terminology for a halfa, Danny had taken it up as well. What choice did he have but to mimic Vlad in some—and only some—ways? The term now, however, felt derogatory.

The list continued: Jack was disappointed with his son, and didn't know why he refused to use the brains Jack knew he had. Why he decided to be a truant, no one was forcing him to—someone better not—it was all his decision-making.

It was like every single last lecture rolled into one, and Danny held his head in his hands.

Frowning, Jack squeezed Danny's shoulder, "We can fix this, Danny, you just have to try. It'll be okay."

_(Is it?)_

"I know." _And I'm going to fail you._

He was too worried that night to login to his MMORPG with Tucker. Which, meant that the next day Tucker would be expecting a full status report. Missing a night on _Doomed?_ Something was horribly amiss.

Danny had no intention of _not_ telling the other boy. His friends were his confidants and his lifelines. His sister, not quite, not yet. It was still such a new thing, a relief and a stopper at once. Finally, someone in his family knew his secret! Then again, being honest with her would take some…time.

In the present, Danny slunk back into his homeroom class.

His friends turned in their seats to face him. "Went easily," he said without pretense. They accepted that. Everyone was loud and excited for summer. No one, not even Mr. Lancer, noticed his departure and return. Good.

Rowdy and impatient, kids were also starting fights…

Fortunately, not with Danny. He himself was a little high-strung, more than prepared for summer to begin. He wondered what would happen once his class got the newest hot-topic. Phantom fought another ghost right outside the school. He knew that several classes with windows had seen him.

He wondered also what it felt like to be a senior, leaving the school forever the second the bell rung for the final time. Wouldn't that be great. However, as luck would have it, Danny was made a halfa at age _fourteen_, not sixteen, or seventeen. He was stuck here dealing with it until it was his time to go on to college—something he wasn't going to achieve.

"Can you help me with this?"

He started, pulled out of his thoughts. "Huh? Oh, yeah, Sam…why do you got so many books?" What, was she trying to be like Jazz, now? He leaned down to help pick up the ones that had spilled out of her backpack.

"I didn't return them to the school library on time. My parents gave me late-fee money, I'm supposed to give it to the librarians when I return these."

"Why didn't you…" Sam looked at him.

"Oh," he said.

Ghost-hunting didn't just eat up his time…it took his friends' too. He couldn't do anything about that, either. They wanted to stay with him. Truth be told, he didn't want to lose them. He had considered pushing them away many times. He never went through with those plans.

He needed them too badly, and—

"It's okay, Danny," Sam interrupted his train of thought, as if reading his mind.

Right. Because it was.

It would always be okay so long as he had his friends and family—hadn't time after time proven that?

_(Are you sure?)_

The bell rung.


End file.
